Catawba

Sitting on the bank, waiting

for pontoons to clear the

pier, hitch their river vessels

to trucks with postmarket

LED high beams, their default,

dusk or dawn. I wait, let them clear

the pier before I traipse down

the root-terraces of red clay,

silty mud sucking my shoes, each

step closer to the current, out

of the shadow of the tree

line, shallow on the sandbar,

water cool under the

surface blood warmth,

submerged trees breaking the

flow, silent, sibilant,

susurrus, slinking slowly

sinking into sand,

quick beneath the

slow susurrus of settling

silt.

River birch rise, silver

slender shapes shielding

the shallows.